Monday, October 6, 2014

Blood Canticle (Vampire Chronicles #10) by Anne Rice

Now Mona is a vampire and not facing her inevitable
death, she is able to ask hard questions – like where her daughter is and what
has become of the Taltos

The big dark secret of the Mayfair family is finally open
and ready to be resolved.

I have a problem.

When I reviewed Blackwood
Farm I gave it 0.5 fangs. I do not regret that rating, it most
definitely deserved that rating. But now I have a problem, because Blood Canticle is even worse but, out of
some odd twisted sense of needing to finish this series, I finished it so I can’t
DNF it.

Normally I like to sum up all the positive things with
the book first. This will not take long. I like that the book addresses Mona
becoming a vampire and how, as a woman, the sheer safety from attack that comes
with vampiric power means a lot more than it would to, say, Quinn. It’s a nice
mention – it’s one line

There’s the good. I can think if not one more positive
thing to add. Now to the much much much longer lists of negative.

Firstly, this book opens with a rather awful screed from
Lestat chastising readers for not appreciating the brilliance of Memnoch
The Devil (a book that was much criticised and, no, I didn’t like it either).
I’ve seen authors respond to negative reviews before and it’s never good, but
to actually have your title character scold readers for not UNDERSTANDING the
insight of your oh-so-perfect book in a later book in the series is rather
shockingly childish and ridiculous. It did not make me positively inclined
towards this book

Then we have Lestat running through this strangely
bizarre joyous ode to Catholicism, including shovelling over a lot of
problematic issues (in a series that likes to make every character bisexual –
well so long as their loves are under-aged – praising the church in glowing
terms then throwing aside the homophobia as a 3 word bracketed reference is
insulting) which then develops into a confused, incoherent ramble of Lestat
wanting to be a saint and the Pope and the spiritual joys of an obscure saint
that will keep popping up throughout the whole book without any real need or relevance
(and it’s not like the books need more reasons to deviate).

After all this (and a brief, strange idea of lecturing the pope that the super-rich
and luxurious would totally save the world so why worry about wealth divides),
we move towards the story. Well, no, we move towards lots of sitting around and
talking, info-dumping, lecturing and great big melodramatic emotional
outbursts, commenting on people’s clothes in huge detail, a lot of recapping
and a whole lot of nothing happening

But all of this happens with Lestat having “updated” his
language. I think this is a response to people complaining about how over-elaborate
the language of these books are – especially when Quinn showed up speaking in
exactly the same voice as Lestat – so now Lestat drops random “yo” “cool” and “dude”.
It is cringingly awful. It’s like your granddad trying to be “hip”. This continues through the book, it is never
not awful.

The characterisation is appalling, especially Mona. Quinn
just kind of fades away into the background. Lestat is histrionic and overly
dramatic and spends most of the book arguing with Oncle Julien’s ghost, quite
why this paedophile is haunting Lestat isn’t really explained, he just appears
and he and Lestat melodramatically argue with each other in ridiculously
overwrought language for pages on end. Mona is a disaster though – she throws
off vast temper tantrums, is slut shamed horrendously both for her sexual past
(accepting the blame for “seducing” a male relative when she was 13!) and for
how she dresses (which Lestat finds distracting so of course she must change!).
She is portrayed as histrionic and bad
tempered and spiteful – even when she’s reasonable (she doesn’t like Rowan for
good reasons, but her anger is portrayed as spite. She objects to how Lestat
speaks to her but she is considered unreasonable). Lestat constantly thinks of
her with words like “harpy”. To top it off, of course she apologises to Lestat
for not being sufficiently meek and subservient to him. The characterisation is
truly cringeworthy.

The story is crammed at the end. Before that we have an excruciatingly
long info-dump of what I assume is the plot of the Mayfair Witches books since
these two series have now been mushed together (to no-one’s shock, Lestat is
now madly in love with Rowan Mayfair. Because Lestat falls in love with everyone
the second he sees them. Always.) in between which we have random dramas and
temper tantrums from ghostly Patsy (musical interval! Just like Lord of the Rings and just as boring)
and Oncle Julien. Finally after all these tantrums and lectures we learn that
the Taltos are out there and need finding.

This is basically the grand conclusion to the Mayfair Witches series which I’m
kind of glad I didn’t finished because if I had invested time into that vast
trilogy I’d be kind of irritated at how roughly the conclusion was swept under
the rug. The vaguely defined Taltos (elves with a breast milk fetish. Yes yes
they are) add nothing to the story – they could just as easily be some precious
gem (or, knowing Lestat’s obsession, saint’s relic) to be retrieved for all the
impact they have in the story. Which means they add nothing to the “plot” which
I can sum up as:

We must find the Taltos! They could be hiding anywhere in
the world! Yo, Maheret?

Maharet: RAWR vampire powers – here’s the address

Lestat: Cool, thanks dude.

But the Taltos are in peril!

Lestat: Rawr vampire powers – peril is done.

But we need to cover up the Taltos

Rowan: Rawr Wealth Of Small Nation – all covered up.

The vampires in this series – and Lestat in particular –
are so ridiculously powerful and just about everyone is so ridiculously rich
that there not only is no conflict but there’s no possibility of conflict.
Everything is either “rawr vampire” or “rawr money” and SOLVED!

So the crumbs of action add no tension or actual plot.
The Taltos themselves are lacking in any real development or storyhooks or
conflict or anything else to flesh out this part, Rowan spends half the time
staring into space and the rest info-dumping and we have some random POC
sitting round the table providing buffoonery or servant duties. Oh and a quick
reminder that the Black women at Blackwood Farm are all wealthy enough to leave
but they stay because they LIKE being servants even if they don’t need the
money; and despite Jasmine’s apparent competence they still need a white male
caretaker to manage the place because REASONS.

This is a book where virtually nothing happens yet it
still manages to be 400 pages long. The characters don’t even remotely resemble
believable people, the dialogue is tortured, the descriptions excessive, the
melodrama would make a 1920s director ask for you to tone it down and the whole
plot pretty much absent – replaced with histrionics, tantrums, emotional
outbursts and lots and lots of info dumping. It was a slog to get through, a
difficult, dull, slog and not even close to entertaining